Monthly Archive

My dear friend Nancy gave me this for my birthday:

I’ve only just set it up this morning. So far have done 405 steps (back upstairs after taking this photo). How did that happen?! I’m still in my dressing gown!

Other blogs may do thousands of words into writing a novel. That appealing accumulation. Of which I have precious little at the moment.

So. I’ll do steps. Okay? Today so far, 10 am: 405.

Yes, we had actually QUITE A LOT OF FUN today at Word on the Street — truly! From Ed who arrived with half a dozen friends at 10 am (having been up for three days, hmm…), to Alis, to Stewart, to Vicky, to Lyn, Arwen, Hannah, Richard, Luigi, Chris, Gary, Pat, Nancy…To Cassy at the council, to Daren at the library, to Whippersnapper: it was all very jolly, and despite the bone-chilling wind, there were some audiences, some laughs, and chins scratched over Beach Reads, the new anthology, etc. As everyone knows by now, parties are amongst my favourite things. Next in line are gatherings of any sort, even of near strangers, which is what this was.

There were loads of photos taken, some for the Gazette apparently, but John T is in there first, so I’m popping this one up for now. His caption is Camera never lies. Find this at once endearing and horrifying: the pasted-in stonework is hilarious, but the happy jowl is disturbing. Oh well! At least the hair is glossy (or is that my silver grey catching the light?!)

More photos of more participants promised from various quarters, so stay tuned….

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Also discovered today that a short interview with me has appeared in:

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Phew!

In my heat of the moment rampage last post, I clean forgot to mention important stuff about Thursday:

1) M had a violin exam that morning. Who knows how it went! We were all a bit perplexed when she came back downstairs saying that the examiner had asked her to play D minor to the 5th. Apparently she paused, then said that she didn’t think she knew that one, she knew E minor to the 5th. Whereupon the examiner shuffled papers and asked her to play what she knew. Good for M for speaking up. But we wonder if he thought she was doing a different grade….Oh well. She played like a trooper anyway.

2) Also spent last Thursday arranging WORD ON THE STREET, a Canterbury City Council and Kent Libraries event connected to the Laureateship. In celebration of the National Year of Reading, and the launch of the 2008 Write Here programme, we are holding open mic (and open air!) readings and performances on the steps of the library (the Beaney!) on the High Street Saturday 29 March, 10-4. There are three reading slots, 10 am, 12 pm, and 1 pm, and so far — hey — a great and varied line-up, FREE OF CHARGE.
10 am: yours truly, Alis Hawkins — and three super students

12 pm: Stewart Ross, Poet-of-the-Year Vicky Wilson, Lyn White — and two super students

1 pm: six members of Save As, a thriving local writing group…(hey guys, where are you on the web?!)

AND — Danny Rhodes says he’ll be lurking. Perhaps in true performance manner, he will have a little baton of work in his back pocket. Pick a slot Danny!

Word on the Street is the first of several ‘well-public’ things the Council and the Laureate (er, me) have arranged in the hopes of encouraging literary activities, and especially of consolidating what already exists in the region. And I have to say that putting this together has been nothing but pleasure: the response has been so positive, so willing. I’m particularly grateful to Alis Hawkins and Stewart Ross — I’ve never met Alis and only spoken to her once online, and she just said ‘yeah, alright’ — and Stewart Ross — known him for years, lives up the road, a busy man…he just said ’sure’ as well. Ian Hocking too was all up for it…but is on his way back from a far-flung place. Thanks anyway Ian! And with a 20% student take up — hey, it’s pretty good!
It’s beginning to feel like there may actually be a writing community hereabouts…

Also on the day: drama and word games by Whippersnapper Theatre Company; Great Beach reads survey; details of a Call for Work (I love this: come one, come all!) for an eventual anthology; and notification of the website www.write-here.net — currently holding…but I’m informed its life is imminent.

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Phew. And just in case that isn’t enough Thursday for you, Word on the Street (arf arf) is that I’m supposed to be on BBC Radio Kent this afternoon at 2.30. Talking about it all. I think.

Oh my goodness. What a week! Rarely so fried… You know how I like lists…. So I’ll do one and try not to use ellipses to the point of ridiculous…. (sorry).

1) Monday: M’s first solo violin concert. Plus three other group pieces. Did beautifully, despite meltdown over the previous weekend. Too much! Was supposed to do a maths challenge and a cross country run the same day. Hmm. We pulled her out of the run. Her violin teacher fetched and carried: playing the instrument, playing with dogs, a snack. That evening, she soared.

Oh, and we forgot E was off to London, to the Barbican to hear a concert. Oops. Got text: am on the bus to London. Have no money or lunch. Double oops. He begged, borrowed and stole. Apparently.

Beautiful food.

2) Tuesday: can’t remember a thing about it. Teaching.

3) Wednesday: M picked up by gorgeous Nancy, who took her for a picnic and brought her to Dance Warehouse, where I met them for an open lesson. E with me, and we both pas de basque-ed at some point…heavens knows when or how. Sandwiches in the car. E whisked into his concert — in two choirs — R showed up 10 mins beforehand from meeting. I went to Sainsbury’s to get something to take to writing group (hello Andrew, Nancy, Craig, Jeremy and Mark!). Ran into M’s drama teacher, who enthused about her and informed me that M had (once again) come home with Distinctions for top effort points in her form. Heavens! Forevermore. Lights under barrels and all that.

Writing group — a new combination — fantastic.

4) Thursday: admin, both kids home. Facing the chronic disaster of the house. Ikea building.

5) Friday: another concert, E on piano this time. Tear-bringing good. Again. Debussy and jazz. Not at the same time. A buzzy couple of hours, particularly seeing so many teenage boys in their element, being respectful, enjoying the music. Hurray Sam Bailey!

Ikea building.

Beautiful food.

6) Saturday: MY BIRTHDAY! Chocolate cake made by all, tulips for present still blooming. And beautiful food.

Laundry and Ikea building.

7) Sunday: Chocolate. Lamb, flagelet beans, mashed carrot & swede, potatoes dauphinoise, roasted parsnips.

Lordy. More laundry and vague Ikea building.

8) Today: end of laundry and end of Ikea building. Unpacking into it all! Trip to dump and a silly play a the swimming pool. Absolutely glorious chicken risotto.

25,000 words reading for next week. Hello students, hello world.

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Don’t really want to do that again. Hoping to stop by here in two days rather than seven…! Thanks for listening.

p.s. if you come back later, you may find some rightful links added…I…just…can’t…do…them…now…

Please be kind and accept that I don’t know how to get rid of the Error 404 page you get when you try to get to my posts the ‘old’ way. This is what happens when I quite rightly decide to do as the whole world is doing and put the blog up front. Why I didn’t do it in the first place I’ll never know….

Anyway, if you’re here you’ll know that clicking ‘Home’ or ‘front page’ worked. Et voila. In future just the normal route will work; no clicking from the Home page. Much better. Just, like, bookmark the main page.

Worried the loyal band of readers will think ach, I was tired of her anyway, and never come back.

Sniff.

p.s. ‘In Sight’ front page now renamed ‘News’. Duh.

After a pretty awful 48 hours, during which I tried and failed not to phone all local birthing centres — after receiving a text that read ‘It’s started!’ — the baby girl has arrived on the scene, daughter of good friend Helena and her husband.

And she is absolutely gorgeous. Wonderful. So precious.

Another question, going on from two days ago: why is new life so very very astonishing?

My father-in-law, a retired GP, says the one thing he never tired of was helping babies into the world, that moment. I find that moving.

What do I remember about those first moments? Relief at E being so healthy, so solid from the beginning, an emergency C-section. Panic the first night when I couldn’t reach him, stretching to rock the crib. Relief at being alive. These feelings co-existed with some wariness until he was six weeks old, when I watched him sleeping at 6 am, his profile there, and thought yes, I am his mother, and I am so thankful.

With M: getting the shakes going into theatre, a planned C-section this time. The midwife understanding the flashbacks. And the irrefutable, instant connection, like an electric circuit. The same midwife nodding, standing next to me in the recovery room, M at my breast. Better this time? And not being able to speak.

Congratulations. Everything’s always alright in the end, even if the beginning is rocky. They are still the best things since sliced bread. Hell, they’re unspeakably better.

I am still in doppleganger land. I feel I’ve been here before. Or never. I may have even titled a post this before. Or not.

My head is pounding. One of the questions I have about life today is why I leave it until I need king codeine before I take something. Another is why can’t I just do what I want to do. Only. Nothing else.

Don’t answer either of them because I know all the answers. It’s a real bugger, being more introspective than is really good for you/me.

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This is much better.

Yesterday was E’s birthday. 12 years old. Have I mentioned that I remember crying on my twelfth birthday, because I would never be 11 again? I did. I remember walking up to the bus stop, standing there waiting, watching the yellow and black thing round the corner, the particular hollow roar of it. And the rubberised deep brown steps to get up. Sniffing all the while, and actually answering someone’s question: why are you crying? And actually telling that someone. If I weren’t already somewhere near the ‘weird’ end of the spectrum in deepest darkest southwestern Virginia, I’m guessing that with that answer I went there.

Answering questions are sometimes not in our best interests.

However. Yesterday E did not cry. He celebrated in his quiet way, despite a heavy cold. He smiled, he appreciated the food his father cooked for him (baked salmon on leeks and capers, baked potato, roast carrots, no stovetop yet!) and the twelve rather skewed candles I’d pressed through the chocolate shell of his cake. He blew all the candles out at once, but had forgotten to make a wish. Later, he blew the table candles out, wish made.

He’s making a fine 12 year old. Handsome, talented, funny, thoughtful — and as precious as the day he was born. More, really.

I’m allowed to say that, even if he reads this and is mortified. So there!

I’m waiting on a baby. Several, really — but only one actual one. Most are metaphorical: the kitchen (how many people couldn’t have seen that coming); end of term writing portfolios from gung-ho students; Laureate activities. And a few are just plain wishful thinking: a clean and orderly house, a linen basket you can put the top on, a sense of completion in general.

Completion. Maybe I should have called this post that. Like with my prose poems, I almost always title posts before I write them. It gives me a space to go into. Maybe.

Back to babies. Three manuscripts on the go at once. Little done with them in two months. Enduring a familiar ennui. In suspended gestation.

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Now back to the real one, the actual star of the show: my good friend Helena is expecting, overdue in fact. For some reason I find I’m almost waiting by the phone, double-checking for texts. I had lunch with her last week, and her house was at the peak of preparation: nappies set up, little folded all-in-ones, Moses basket, cot, and pram by the door.

Sigh. How the first child razes everything, then builds it all back the same but different. Things are so empty before the baby arrives, and you don’t even know it. It’s impossible to imagine how full life can be.

Stay tuned….

but as you can see from the last post, I’m slightly at sixes and sevens. As they say.

Anyone who’s interested: I’m doing a FREE workshop for the Canterbury Festival Poet of the Year Competition on Tuesday night, 4 March.

Purpose: kickstarting and/or workshopping poems for the competition

Time: 7.30 pm

Venue: Dominican Priory, St Peters Lane, Canterbury CT1 2BP

More details about the competition itself — which I’m judging along with Vicky Wilson (Canterbury Festival Poet of the Year 2007) — to follow.